The cross-cockade of the soldier of the state militia during the war of 1812

An extremely rare cockade is a real dream of any collector. Brass, stamping. St. Petersburg Mint. It was also used as a reward ("By order of the corps commander, General of the cavalry, Count Wittgenstein, as a mark of distinction for zeal and zeal for the benefit of the fatherland, twenty-two crosses of the St. Petersburg militia were given with the name of the sovereign emperor and the inscription: for the tsar and faith to the peasants of the village of Zhartsy, who fought several times by themselves with the French, protecting property their own, trying solely to eradicate the enemy who was harming the fatherland; these crosses are allowed to be worn forever on their hats, in assurance of which this certificate is given under my signature with the seal of His Excellency on October 11, 1812. His Imperial Majesty, my Most Gracious Sovereign, Privy Counsellor, head of the St. Petersburg and Novgorod militia, Senator and cavalier Bibikov. The essay "The award medal of a participant in the Patriotic War of 1812 as a monument of the epoch".). Currently, no more than a dozen surviving copies are known. The safety is excellent. The size is 67*67 mm. Guarantee of authenticity.

Alexander I, by decree of July 31, 1812, created a Special Committee "in his person". Members of this committee are the Chairman of the Department of Military Affairs Before their official appointment, A.A. Arakcheev, Minister of Police A.D. Balashov and Secretary of State A.S. Shishkov, together with Moscow Commander-in-Chief F.V. Rostopchin, on behalf of the Emperor, developed and submitted to him for approval on July 14 a regulation on the Moscow militia, called "The composition of the military Moscow force", which was the basis that determined those the general principles established by the central government, based on which it was possible in the provinces, in accordance with local conditions, to take their own initiative.

About the militia signs in this document, it was said that the militia should have on their caps "a cross embossed from copper brass and at the bottom of it a monogram (i.e. monogram. – V.B.) of His Imperial Majesty's Name for a sign: for Faith and the King." According to the literal meaning of this phrase, the cross and the imperial monogram should have been placed separately on the militia's headdress, but its fundamental, defining meaning was, of course, not this, but that it set the theme, the content of the militia signs – they were supposed to express the motto "For Faith and the Tsar", and in which It was in the form of this that it would be carried out – in the form of a separately made cross and monogram, or in the form of placing the motto itself on the band of the cap, or in some other way - that the provinces could decide on their own. This is exactly how it was understood on the ground, as evidenced by the presence of variants of militia signs of 1812. 

Both in general historical and in special numismatic literature, for many decades, the statement has been wandering from one publication to another that in 1812 there was a unified militia sign and this sign was minted on At the St. Petersburg Mint, a brass cross, on the widened ends of which, having holes at the edges for sewing to the headdress, were placed: at the top – the monogram of Alexander 1 under the crown, and on the sides and below the inscription – "For–Faith – and –Tsar".

In the last decades of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this sign even became one of the main symbols personifying the Patriotic War of 1812: its image was placed on a medal in memory of the consecration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, was reproduced on the covers and titles of books and pamphlets, especially those published for the centennial anniversary of the epic of 1812, and the statement of the authoritative "The Military Encyclopedia" that during the Patriotic War "the cap of each militia member was decorated with a copper cross with the inscription: "For the Faith and the Tsar" ...", in one form or another varied in a wide variety of publications.